During a work session on Wednesday, schools Superintendent Martha Peek asked the board to approve hearings on Feb. 27 at 5 p.m. at Eichold-Mertz and on March 13 at 5 p.m. at Craighead Elementary School.

The Eichold-Mertz students will be rezoned for five nearby elementary schools: Craighead, Hall, Leinkauf, Maryvale and Morningside. Several students will also be rezoned to attend Spencer-Westlawn Elementary.

Maps of the reconfigured attendance zones will be available at the public meetings, Peek said, and the principals of the affected schools will also be on hand.

In addition, Peek said, the schools' principals will schedule open houses between the dates of Feb. 27 and March 13 to give parents and children a chance to tour the schools and meet the teachers and staff.

Peek met with Eichold-Mertz parents on Feb. 12, then with MCPSS Magnet parents and principal Michelle Adams at the school in Chickasaw on Feb. 13.

Peek said the first meeting at Eichold-Mertz went well, with several hundred attending. “Everyone got to express their opinion,” she said. “It gave the school system an opportunity to cover what the plans are and also to assure parents that we’re going to work with them to make the transition very positive, and we’ll accommodate the needs of their students.

“We’ll be right there, working through this transition process with them and their children, and also the faculty and staff at Eichold-Mertz.”

At the Feb. 13 meeting in Chickasaw, parents applauded the move to Eichold-Mertz, Adams said. “We’re ready,” she said, adding that the magnet school parents have always been very supportive over the years, volunteering to clean classrooms and stocking the library for the most recent move to Hamilton Elementary. “They’re invested in the program,” Adams said.

The magnet school is currently housed at the former Hamilton Elementary on Grant Street in Chickasaw. The move to Eichold-Mertz, which will be completed in time for the start of the 2014-15 school year, will be the magnet’s third move in four years.

In 2010, the magnet school was moved from an aging campus on Craft Highway in Chickasaw to the newly renovated school building on Twelfth Avenue (now renamed Chieftain Way), but shortly after teachers and staffers moved in, the city of Chickasaw announced its intention to split from the Mobile County school system.

The Mobile County school system then moved the magnet to its current location, with the understanding that the newly-formed Chickasaw City Schools system would take possession of the building within four years.

Students are accepted into the magnet school program by lottery, with the goal of having close to an equal number of black and white students.

Parents are attracted to sending their children to magnet schools because of the advanced and specialized curricula offered. Students don’t have to have a particular grade point average to get in, but they must maintain at least a C average and a clean disciplinary record in order to stay.

When the school board voted on Feb. 7 to move the magnet school to Eichold-Mertz, some parents expressed worry about how their children would be able to perform in the magnet school environment.

“There are a lot of myths about magnet schools and who is enrolled,” Adams said. “All children are welcomed. We’ll help you with the application process. If you’re interested in a challenging, highly motivated learning environment, you’ll get a strong return on your investment, and that’s a promise.”

The move means that Eichold-Mertz and the magnet school teachers will all fill out mandatory transfer forms and re-apply for their jobs.

School officials are consulting with the principals of the six schools involved in the move to make decisions about rezoning, in order to make sure the changes won’t be a huge inconvenience, Adams said. Also, parents may apply for a hardship transfer if they’re not happy with the school their child is assigned to attend.

Most of the schools involved with the rezoning have shown a decline in enrollment in the last few years, because more Mobilians are moving west.

Rezoning the Eichold-Mertz students to the other schools will make all five more viable, because a decline in enrollment leads to a loss of teacher units, said Rena Philips, the school system’s supervisor of marketing and community partnerships. “They’ll gain in enrollment and in staff; some may even gain an assistant principal,” she said.